Bob Hope Airport held a grand opening ceremony this morning for the $112 million Regional Intermodal Transportation Center (RITC). The RITC took two years to complete and is the largest capital project in the airport’s history. It also establishes the first direct rail-to-terminal connection at any Southern California airport.

The RITC is located immediately across the street from the Bob Hope Airport Station served by Metrolink and Amtrak. It will house a new bus transit station and rental car facilities and is connected to the passenger terminal via an elevated walkway.

Transit officials also announced the plans for a pedestrian bridge between the RITC and the existing Metrolink station along Empire Avenue. You can read the Metro staff report on the project here.

Pffft… “rail-to-terminal connection”? How cute. The agencies should be honest. Everyone outside cars was an afterthought for the RITC, which in reality is a giant parking structure that doesn’t actually improve the existing pedestrian connection from the terminal to the rail station.
Do passengers still need to cross Empire to catch the rails? Yes, as indicated by the fact that they didn’t already build a pedestrian bridge as part of the RITC. Until then, we still need to walk a thoroughfare intended for autos (i.e. unfriendly to pedestrians) and cross Empire. We also still need to wait for a (free) Super Shuttle to the NoHo Red Line station instead of a reliable bus connection with a regular cadence.
Marketing speak from government agencies is embarrassing so please cut it out.

It would be nice of Metro put the extension of the Red Line to Burbank Airport on its wish list. A lot of business travelers who have business in DTLA would use the Burbank Airport and use the subway for transportation.

Glad to see that Metro helped pay for Burbank to acquire and omprove the old private Zelman STAR parking lot that was taking away all that potential revenue from airport coffers. No more ticketing of “Jaywalkers”, I hope?

I agree that Red Line service to Bob Hope Airport would be very good. However, it might not do as well as would be the case with limited service (not stopping at every station – e.g. Chicago’s Evanstson Express). Unfortunately, I don’t know how practical such service is with only to tracks most of the way.